Greater New Orleans

Fight On

For the last several months I have been
keeping a regular appointment with an oncologist. I’m not the one
receiving care, however. My friend has lung cancer, and I have been
accompanying her as she receives weekly doses of chemotherapy.

These cancer treatments are administered
in an “infusion laboratory.” If you have never been in one, and I hope
you never have the occasion, they are all fairly uniform in design and
purpose. The “lab” is a simple room with comfortable, leather lounge
chairs lining the walls. Each chair has an infusion pump that pushes
what everyone prays is cancer-killing compounds through the body.

Competent, smiling nurses respond to the
needs of the patients and the beeping machinery. Doctors float in and
out of the room as needed. Faces grimace over the prospects of yet
another needle stick; cancer war stories are told and retold; and
blankets are handed out with sips of ginger ale and nibbles of saltine
crackers to ease the nausea.

There are those tucked into those chairs
who look well, and others who are obviously ill. There are those who
have been making pilgrimage to the lab for years, and those who are
newbies. Some are alone, and some are with friends or family. Some
discretely hide their baldness and emaciation, and others wear the
rigors of treatment like a badge of honor.

And when it comes to coping, the
differences are manifold as well. Some are in shock over their
prognosis. Some are depressed. Some have a stoic, Zen-like acceptance.
Some keep smiling no matter what, and some are as mad as hell – at life,
God, physicians – at anything or anyone who can be held responsible.

Then some patients have all these
feelings simultaneously, jumbled together at once. Don’t be fooled:
Coping with a major illness is not as orderly as textbooks led us to
believe. It is a hot mess of total emotion when facing one’s personal
mortality, and everyone who stands on that precipice feels everything at
one point or another in the process – and sometimes these are all felt
at once.

But for all the compare and contrast of
these unique individuals, they are all held together by the solidarity
of their battle. Through the blood, sweat, and tears they fight; they
fight like gladiators in the arena. And gladiators they are, for they
are desperately fighting for their lives. More so, they are fighting for
what it means to be human.

As a hospital chaplain and pastor, I have
visited countless bedsides, cancer wards, and infusion labs; never have
I grown accustomed to the brutalizing effects of the disease on both
body and spirit. Cancer, like few other afflictions, does more than
“steal, kill, and destroy” the physique. It attempts to deprive a person
of his or her dignity. It endeavors to smother the internal flame and
erase the spirit of the one who suffers.

So those fighting cancer (and other
horrible illnesses) are not just fighting for a few more years. They are
fighting for what it means to be a human being. They are marshalling
all their grit and resilience (and something that borders on elegance),
not just to stay alive physically, but to guard their very souls.

Oddly, this reminds me of legendary
pacifist Pastor A.J. Muste. During the Vietnam War he stood in front of
the White House night after night with a lit candle, in persistent and
peaceful protest. A reporter asked him, “Do you really think that
standing here with a candle can change the world?” Paraphrasing, he
answered with a smile, “I don’t stand here with my candle to change the
world. I stand here to keep the world from changing me.”

Those in the arena understand that
physical life may be taken from them, but by God’s grace, no disease
will ever rob them of their humanity, their identity, of their innate
worth as unique creations of the Almighty. They understand that the
fight may not change their prognosis, but the fight prevents the disease
from changing them.

Ronnie McBrayer is a syndicated columnist, pastor, and author of
multiple books. You can read more and receive regular e-columns in your
inbox at www.ronniemcbrayer.me.